It’s not about and isn’t worded to be about the video games being played. It’s about the shit going on among gamers where they are SWATing each other, which has been on the rise over the past few years. As such, it’s been a concern about the hobby. Not just the hobby, but there are people here who stream themselves, or watch streamers. Hell, you don’t even have to be a streamer to get swatted, it’s just that doing it to a streamer catches it all on camera instead of reading about it in the news the next day. It pertains to gaming, which is why it’s in the game forum.
If you find the topic uninteresting or potentially offensive, you have the tools available to you to completely ignore or disappear the topic at your discretion.
I think its easier to be above the fray in politics if you are not affected by it. In 2018 for good or ill more people than usual feel affected by politics I think, hence it seeps into subjects previously apolitical.
To paraphrase someone smarter than me, I am interested in Thanksgiving. The turkey is invested in Thanksgiving.
I’m here in the Games subforum primarily to talk and read about games, but games—as with everything in life—have context. If that context is political, that’s part of what I’d be here to talk and read about as well.
That said, I think it’s important for us to be less jerk-like to each other in the Games subforum than in P&R if only for the fact it’s the standard draw to the “outside world” and extreme obnoxiousness could scare away interesting voices.
I can agree with that. I certainly did try and keep things as simple and non political as possible, vis a vis the recent swatting discussion.
Not because I couldn’t have a deeper discussion on the topic, but because as the games forum I was trying to keep the discussion as non partisan as possible. Though it is a shame that that particular discussion has to be political, because preventing such tragedies and disincentivising such behaviors should be more bipartisan.
I’m rather dismayed too that saying that maybe police shouldn’t be shooting unarmed people on their own doorsteps could be considered partisan. Or even particularly political, I guess. There are certainly partisan ways the conversation could go, but it hadn’t yet.
To me, as an outsider (ie non-american) from a country where party politics is multipolar this reads as utterly insane. So as soon as a conversation goes in a direction where it might pertain on who or what you vote, you take a side by default. (that’s what partisan means, right?)
Doesn’t this kind of thinking utterly stifle any kind of nuance? How in hades can you ever have a change of opinion if that change could only mean crossing over the ocean to the utterly other side? Where’s the possibility of a reasonal if boring middle ground in that?
Sure these are the opinion of a white middle aged man. But I can empathize with a brown trans woman if I want to. I’m a gamer see, I know how to think myself into a role other than my own.
To me, as an outsider (ie non-american) from a country where party politics is multipolar this reads as utterly insane. So as soon as a conversation goes in a direction where it might pertain on who or what you vote, you take a side by default. (that’s what partisan means, right?)
Doesn’t this kind of thinking utterly stifle any kind of nuance? How in hades can you ever have a change of opinion if that change could only mean crossing over the ocean to the utterly other side?
By “partisan ways the conversation could go” I think Wyndwraith just meant that the discussion about SWATing could have fallen back into old and well tread arguments about the police, gun control, etc. But not every person who votes republican or democratic has to have the same views on every subject. Example: a while back in the P&R section, there was a thread on something like “the top 3 most important liberal policy initiatives”. And absolutely everyone had their own top 3 items that they thought were most important.
Where’s the possibility of a reasonal if boring middle ground in that?
One party made the discovery that you can defeat compromisers by making steadily more extreme demands. E.g. if you are always going to get half of what you ask for, why not just ask for the moon? (the moon in this case being the repeal of Marbury Vs Madison and everything that came after it)
If the conversation had veered into a debate about gun control or the racial aspects of police violence, for example, that could quite partisan. I think that’s mostly a result of the US only having two major political parties: proponents and opponents of an issue tend to line up with one if them. For the gun control debate, that’s broadly more gun control = democrat vs less gun control = republican. There are certainly exceptions, as with any generalization.
If the discussion is about a game or a game’s politics, it can go into games, but maybe create a separate thread about the issue so discussion can be funneled there.
I think there can be no full separation of politics in any conversation around art forms. The P&R forum is a great place to discuss just politics, and I won’t usually venture there. However, I am very interested in hearing how a game may be highlighting issues that could be deemed political. How games might display people of fluid gender dynamics, deal with police violence, heck even deal with elections and poltics. How could we even have a reasonable discussion if a game like Democracy 3 is good without delving into some kind of political discussion especially with how it might weigh different inputs.
This doesn’t mean every thread of course should delve into a heavy political bend. And maybe once the discussion pushes out of the bounds of the game discussion that might be a time to recommend the people involved split the conversation into P&R about the political bend, but not move the thread or remove any discussion in the thread about how the game might be showing, or interpreted to be showing, some kind of political bend or message.
I find myself dipping into the P&R forum way more in the last two years, but that’s what it’s there for I think. I like its isolation. I used to also lurk on Neogaf a lot. However, it has become way too politically charged “gaming” discussions over there. Everything feels like a…well, super charged version of where the SWAT thread went here yesterday (with a rather particular political pitchfork feel on Neogaf). I don’t like reading over there anymore. I think the SWAT thread was pretty innocuous here for a long time though.
My vote is to please keep think it light, nerdy, and devoid of politics in the game sub-forum.
